Durza Gurkesh

Durza
Biographical Information
Race	Abyssin
Homeworld	Byss
Mother	Unknown
Father	Unknown
Spouse	None
Siblings	Unknown
Children	None
Born	Unknown
Quote	"Silence is my weapon and faith is my shield."
Physical Description
Gender	Female
Height	2.0 meters
Coloring	Sage green skin with brown hair
Eye Color	Single slitted red eye
Political Information
Affiliation	Ghost Squadron
Prior Affiliation	Nite Owls Mandalore The Faerytail Family Subduco Syndicate

Mandalorian shock trooper, personal bodyguard-for-hire, bounty hunter, defense contractor, and heavy weapons specialist

Durza is a female Abyssin hailing from the Gurkesh tribe of Byss. Although Abyssins do not traditionally use family names, Durza found the practice useful when dealing with spacefaring aliens whose first impression of her was rarely trusting. Often clad in her azure set of Beskar heavy armor with blasters at the hip and an NZ-9118 slung around the back, Durza strikes an intimidating profile. Heavily armored -nearly blastproof- and armed to the teeth, she is very clearly a trained soldier with some experience as heavy infantry, i.e. a Mandalorian shocktrooper. A strangely cheap and antiquated looking slug thrower rests on her right thigh holster, out of place among her other well-polished equipment. A score of tally marks, engraved into the side of the C-M Shotgun with something sharp, shows the real reason why Durza carries around such an old firearm: she's been counting every successful bounty since she got what was evidently her first weapon. And now, the tallies stretch from the shotgun's rear all the way to the very tip.

• Age: 46y
• Height: 2.0m
• Weight: 114.6 kg

• Nicknames: The Azure Queen
• Flagship: Dreadnaught-class Heavy Cruiser 'Raging Bull'

Biography

Early Years

Durza’s journey began under the guidance of her adoptive father, a seasoned Mandalorian armorer who discovered her as an abandoned child during a salvaging expedition in the Outer Rim. He brought her to Coruscant, where he imparted to her the skills of shooting and basic combat. Despite her deep admiration for him, Durza struggled to grasp the intricacies of smithing, proving to be a less-than-ideal successor to his armorer business. However, her prowess with her father's latest weaponry and her natural talent as a fighter pilot quickly became apparent.Thus, when Durza first set out to make her fortunes, she naturally tried her hand at a brief stint in bounty hunting.

Neo-Crusader Shock Trooper

Durza was trained as a Heavy Infantry unit, or more colloquially, a shock trooper in the image of the first Mandalorian Neo-Crusader shock troopers. Units of shock troopers were created by Mandalore the Ultimate during the Mandalorian Wars in order to fill the gap of specialized soldiers generated by the uniformization of every Mandalorian troops in one standardized army. As the population of Neo-Crusaders increased, Mandalore approved the creation of the specialized battle groups for special purposes. Hence, shock troopers were one of the early "special varieties" of Neo-Crusaders deployed in the wars and the first specialist unit deemed vital to military efforts.

Career

G-Sec

Gurkesh Security Inc., or G-Sec as some call it, began as a one-employee bounty hunter firm that took contracts for various criminals and undesirables that have evaded authorities. Upon reaching adulthood, Durza embarked on her own path as a bounty hunter, armed with nothing but a trusty Fragstorm shotgun and a pair of mag-binders. She quickly gained a reputation for her relentless pursuit of justice and her confidentiality, and soon found several freelance bounty hunters in her employ. After one assignment went horrendously wrong and several of her compatriots were left for dead, Durza realized she could benefit from formal combat training. At the advice of her father, Durza closed G-Sec temporarily and traveled to Mandalore, hoping to learn more about the culture in which she was raised.

Mandalore Academy

Durza elected to train as a cadet of the Mandalorian Heavy Infantry Division on Mandalore. There, she learned the fundamentals of squad combat and strategy, while also cultivating an interest and expertise in heavy weapons, studying under the tutelage of war-proven Neo-Crusader shock troopers.The Neo-Crusader shock troopers were elite Mandalorian Neo-Crusader warriors. They specialized in incursions where the nature of the battlefield was unknown, such as underground tunnels, spacecraft, and congested urban areas. Typically generic Neo-Crusaders won positions as shock troopers by impressing their Rally Masters in combat. Contrary to the rest of the Neo-Crusader army that was entirely standardized with soldiers organized in three distinct positions, shock troopers had their own hierarchy, reporting ultimately to Field Marshal Cassus Fett, second-in-command to Mandalore the Ultimate. Durza also received tutelage in other domains: space combat, army compositions, basic facts regarding galactic history, etc. Although accepted by her peers and commanders, her Abyssin background and lack of familiarity with her cultural heritage made her into something of a pariah. She joined House Wren, led by Kaden Wren, another Mandalorian who was something of an outcast himself. The shared affinity led Durza to seek Kaden as her guiding mentor through the verd'goten: the ritualistic hunt all Mandalorians underwent as a rite of passage. Once complete, Durza's enrollment in the Academy was considered to have come to fruition. However, she found herself ruminating on her Abyssin heritage more so than her adoptive Mandalorian one, which led her to seek new opportunities elsewhere.

Durza eventually reached out to Simkin Dragoneel - the leader of The Faerytail Family, an ardently Imperial-aligned faction - for a job involving hunting and planet-slabbing. The pay Sims offered her was astronomically higher than before - a jump from 1.4 million to 41 million credits a month - and it was the first time Durza began to amass considerable funds.

Faerytail Family

Despite being thought a deserter and sellout by some of her former cohorts, Durza began to fund an expedition back to her homeward Byss in order to investigate her history. She began clearing out bandits and dangerous wildlife at Sims' request - helping him colonize and develop two planets before saving up enough funds for her pilgrimage back home. At Byss, Durza found no answers to any of her questions and no trace of the Gurkesh tribe. However, while heading back to Mytaranor, she encountered a revivalist sect of the Pius Dea aboard a Dreadnaught. Intrigued by their ideals of order and justice and feeling lost in chaos, she felt compelled to join their ranks. Although initially treated as a second-class citizen, Durza earned their trust through tireless dedication and her formidable combat skills. She embraced her role within the Pius Dea, committing herself to their mission of smiting chaos and restoring balance to the galaxy.

Returning to Ota, Durza restarted her work for Faerytail with a new zeal - to help revive Pius Dea and spread its influence at large. While her fellow faeries all referred to her as Durza, it was around this time near the end of Y25 that she was first christened Contispex XX, in recognition of her contributions and guidance to the revival of Pius Dea and her efforts in establishing their presence.

Pius Dea

Now, as a steadfast crusader for the Pius Dea, Durza Gurkesh embodies the spirit of a true space paladin. Her imposing presence and unwavering resolve make her a beacon of hope in a tumultuous universe, wielding her weapons not for personal gain, but as instruments of justice to protect those who cannot defend themselves. Her journey reflects a relentless pursuit of righteousness as she champions the ideals of the Pius Dea, striving to cull the chaos that threatens to engulf the galaxy. For all the eloquent imagery, it became obvious in due time that even the elders of Pius Dea saw Durza, their figurehead leader, merely as a means to their own ends. Thus, Contispex XX abdicated her throne without a second thought.

Subduco Syndicate

At this time, Durza lined up employment under Gellert von Falkenstein, the Syndic of the Subduco Syndicate. A trading conglomerate with numerous suspected criminal ties, Subduco offered Durza a position as their head of security and Durza immediately made enormous strides in their military organization and defense protocols. However, Durza quickly grew horrified at the conditions under Subduco, noticing that all entry-level employees were called "gophers" and that there was no pay or bonuses despite the rather successful business front. She destroyed her work so as to not let the Syndicate profit further from her expertise and she began an emergency hyperjump back to Mandalorian territory, where at least she could expect safe harbor. At this time, her Mandalorian clan leader Soma Wren (of Evaarla Wren) sought Durza out and offered her a position working beneath him, posturing himself as the friendly clan leader she had known in her youth.

Nite Owls

Evaarla Wren had been ejected from the Mandalorian Clans for disorderly conduct and frequent sanctions, and Soma (son of Kaden Wren, one of Durza's former teachers) was now seeking refuge with the Death Watch, whom he had been communicating with and was offering him a space to build his group safely. Soma had conceived of an elite group - the Nite Owls - who would serve as an elite mercenary unit under Death Watch. He had also grown vehemently anti-Mandalore by this time. Durza aided Soma extensively, as she would have his father Kaden, offering what knowledge and wisdom she could to best serve the Nite Owls as they developed slowly. In recogition of her service, she was made the Rally Master of Nite Owls (3IC), and then quickly promoted to Field Marshal (2IC) directly under Soma himself. However Kaden was not perfect and Soma had grown even more ill - he had secret back channels with Xyre, the leader of Death Watch, from which he quietly profited at the expense of his subordinates. Soma would also take the various achievements of Nite Owls and especially Durza himself and pawn it as his own accomplishments for political capital with Death Watch and the affiliated groups of the Zann Consortium. Clearly suffering from some sort of illness, Soma began making questionable decisions: purchasing an asteroid hideout and some satellites for 65m (he thought he was purchasing an entire asteroid field), threatening to capture unruly Nite Owls fledglings (recruits), hazing some of his own members in the middle of a tantrum, making a female member uncomfortable with unwanted sexual comments, and acting like an all around despot and tyrant. After several recruits had been punished and/or left, Durza found herself in the middle of one of Soma's rants focusing on how he expected absolute obedience after she mentioned that if the Nite Owls was to succeed, they would need to work together and not like a monarchy. The irony was not lost on Soma, and so Durza began to make plans to exit yet once again in her tumultuous career. She wrote a letter of resignation after which the Nite Owls schismed and nearly dissolved entirely, and upon escaping Nite Owls territory, even flirted with the possible idea of stealing Soma's fleet (to which she had access) before he could find other means to spread his tyranny.

Ghost Squadron

Amidst her listless wandering, Durza came across Raff Berik of Ghost Squadron, a small specialized mercenary unit operating under the Alliance of Mercenary Consortiums. Raff spoke to Durza and dissuaded her from her former criminal ties and machinations against Soma Wren, instead offering her a civilian position as their resident Chief Quartermaster. He even sweetened the deal with a sign-on bonus of a beskar ingot, valued at 400,000,000 credits at market - it was an offer she simply could not refuse. Now working as Ghost Squadron's quartermaster and all-around logistics expert - decidedly less volatile work for her retirement - Durza has finally found comrades who do not exploit her, abuse her, or manipulate her for their own ends.

Signing a major industrial deal and in partnership with Berik Industries, Durza went on to create Gurkesh Industries in a remote annex of Ghost Squadron's production hub and began selling ship packages focused on bandit elimination and self-defense. Under Raff's tutelage, the former pirate became a celebrated ambassador in the Alliance. She played a major part in the Churnis accords which was regretfully not successful, but the initiative into AMC's diplomatic sphere soon later into productive discussions with the Hydian Expanse.